How to burn an extra 100 calories daily

It is a myth that in order to lose weight, you need to do more of everything - more activity, more cooking, more organizing, more planning -- but sometimes the best thing you can do for your waistline (and sanity) is less but well incorporated into your lifestyle. A few simple good supportive habits that empower you to be your best self!

#1) Burn less midnight oil - Sleep more:
Many people overlook their sleep, burning the candle at both ends in the frenzy to manage it all. Research has shown that getting less than four hours of sleep over an extended period of time drastically slows your metabolism. Aim for between 7 to 9 hours sleep per night which is the average calculated by researchers and scientists. 

#2) Ditch the television - Interact more:
Stop watching television for the sake of watching television, you know it makes you a Couch Potato! You’re effectively a by-product of your Telly-watch these days. Pen in your favorite shows on the agenda and cut out mindless zombie channel surfing. I think we’ve all been guilty of sitting in front of the TV and thinking: ‘There is nothing on!’, and yet, we still sit there and watch ‘Nothing’ AND munch on junk-food to stave off the boredom. Studies have shown that adults who halved how much TV they watch burned an extra 119 calories per day, without actually changing their calorie intake. use the time to strengthen bonds with family and friends.

#3) Avoid sugar - more Awareness:
Consumption of sugar triggers your pancreas to release insulin, but since the pancreas does not know exactly how much insulin to dish out, often it overcompensates or undercompensates which then either shuttles sugar to your cells to be used as energy, or if the energy from the sugar isn’t required, sugar will be stored as fat. This includes carbohydrates!

#4) Cook your own food - more Health:
We all know it’s usually healthier than buying takeaway, and you also know exactly what has gone in as well as how hygienically it has been prepared. You will burn calories by preparing your food, you will be on your feet for about an extra half an hour, which definitely burns more calories than driving to the takeaway shop or getting food home-delivered.

#5) Get socially active and we don’t mean Social Media! Get out more:
Organise a social function, meet up with friends and neighbours, strengthen the ties and while you’re at it, pick an activity that gets you moving whilst having fun at the same time. There are plenty of options such as garden games, pool meets, ten pin bowling, dance parties… Each of these options burns on average about 200 calories per hour.

#6) Clip on a pedometer - Walk more:
Aim to exceed 10,000 steps per day. 10,000 steps equates to about 5 miles or 8 kms, which depending on a few variables, such as weight, sex and age, can burn anywhere from 250-600 calories per day. Added benefit, great circulation if you do it throughout the day!

#7) Move faster - Amp it up more:
It’s a fact that fit people do everyday tasks with more speed and agility, whilst overweight people tend to complete the same tasks at a much slower rate. We know that the faster we move our body, the faster we burn calories. Every now and then walk like you are late for a meeting. Add a skip, hop, twirl to have more fun!

#8) Walk and talk -- On your feet more :
If you can, don’t sit still when you take a phone call. At home stand up or walk around the house while on the phone, at work if possible take the phone call standing up. Standing burns about 50 percent more calories than sitting. What that means is you can burn about an extra 50 calories per hour by standing and talking on the phone. If you walk while you talk, you burn about 85-90 calories per hour. For those of you who need to use a phone a lot, this is a great trick. If using your mobile, aim to use it with headphones and speaker to reduce risk of electro-magnetic pollution!

#9) Don’t eat in the car - more Mindfulness:
Unless you are on a long road trip, avoid eating in the car. Eating in the car can lead to mindless consumption of junk-food calories, if you carry it within easy reach, more often than not all you are doing is filling in time while you are sitting in traffic. For those on the run, it can seem like a time saver, but don’t you think you deserve to savour a good nourishing meal and a few pleasant moments to be mindful about it?

#10) Tweak your core - more Abdominals:
Every time you are driving and you get stuck at a traffic light, squeeze your core. It can help you lower back and it actually burns calories because you are tensing your stomach muscles. Before long you will be doing it automatically. Red light = Squeeze tummy muscles! Clench in and release, clench and release… Hello, Flat Tummy!

Try and incorporate as many of these as possible and say hello to more health and fitness!

10 Tips to apply for Weight Loss in 10 Minutes or Less or More

Often we feel so overwhelmed by the idea of starting a weight loss plan. Here are a few simple tips to sneak into your daily lifestyle so that you have NO MORE EXCUSES!

Start right away and you will find yourself feeling great in a few weeks!

Trying to overhaul your entire lifestyle by following restrictive diets and taking out expensive gym subscriptions every season can leave you frustrated. You start on the diets, you get all kitted out for the intense workout programs, but it is not sustainable for most of us. The first few days are full of motivation but eventually making huge changes becomes tiring, frustrating and overwhelming and most people tend to quit, until the next time. That’s why we work with baby steps, chunking it down, thinking small. How do you eat an elephant? By focusing on bite-sized pieces!

1. Take a 10-minute break
Most of us are rushing at full throttle. This causes our body to remain in stress mode, produce more cortisol, a stress induced hormone that can block our metabolism and do a lot of harm in the long run,  and we also tend to get easily distracted and dangerously forgetful while desperately trying to keep things together, be efficient at work, good housekeepers, parents, running around shuttling kids to various activities, thinking about the groceries, chores, appointments…..
STOP.
Take a full 10-minute breather from your busy life and do absolutely nothing.
Turn off all distractions, switch off the phone (actually switch it off), the TV, the computer, dinner on the stove…whatever could interrupt you and spend 10 full minutes with your eyes closed. Relax and take deep breaths. If you can stretch to 15” better still. If you can do it twice a day, you rock!
  
2. Kit yourself out for winning - Wear more comfortable clothes and shoes
Unless you are honour bound to run around in tight skirts, executive suits, high heels or smart but uncomfortable footwear at work, you can burn off  many more calories throughout the day simply by being more comfortable and having your pretty feet well-wrapped in good-quality comfortable footwear.  Research shows that we tend to be more active during their workday when our feet are comfortable and the waistband is not cutting into our tummy. Cutting small amounts of calories here and there adds up to the sum in the long run and doesn’t really require much effort.

3.  Cut 100 calories in big meals or thereabouts
Today there’s a lot of discussion about keto diets and cutting out carbs for weight loss and what not. Crash diets only lead to frustration and the weight usually creeps back in, more than ever. This is because we need to cut out excess useless calories and not essential nutrition.  Try and keep it simple: have  a good look at what you are eating daily – the best way to do this is a food log. Then, just remove a 100 calories at your larger meals. That’s roughly equal to a pat of butter on your toast, extra salad dressing, extra cheese, mayonnaise... let’s say anything extra, Chopping a total of 200-300 calories spread out over three meals can take off almost half a kg a week! This is also a good way to lose slowly and steadily, allowing the body to adjust accordingly. 

4. Take 10” daily to plan ahead or do it weekly
When you’re well armed with a plan everything gets easier becoming a no-brainer! If you love planning, you can do a month’s meal plans in advance and set yourself up for success… or if you buy as per the supermarket offers and season, you can simply give your meal-plans 10” daily or ven less with practice. Remember, the Calendar is our friend, waiting to serve us. As you wrap up the day, take a few minutes looking into your pantry and figuring out your meals for the next day. Bonus points, if you can prep something before heading off to watch TV or do other stuff. Having something ready, even prepped makes it so much smoother the next day!

5. Cook your own meals
There is really no better way to own your health! Unless you can hire a great cook, with good nutrition basics well drilled into them, you are the only one who can truly control what goes into your body, the one you will live in for the rest of your life! Get informed. If you cannot do all your meals for whatever reason, at least aim for a light nutritious dinner/evening supper. Breakfast like a King, lunch like a rich man and dine like a pauper used to be the norm once. Today, for most of us, dinner is the largest meal of the day and perhaps the only time the family can really eat together. Cooking on your own means you can control exactly what goes into your food, how it is prepared and how much is your personal portion. There is a variety of absolutely good nutritious light meals you can whip up in a few minutes with a good plan.

6. The Kitchen is closed
Most ancient cultures talk about eating the last meal by sundown, allowing the body to digest and metabolize the meal, keeping you feeling “lighter” and contributing to better sleep. Whether you ascribe to this or not, a lot of nutritionists tend to agree on reducing carbs in evening meals and allowing a few hours for digestion between the meal and sleep. If you have a tendency to mindlessly munch on something in front of the TV, you need to curb the habit. Just like fine-restaurants have the kitchen open for service until a certain hour, decide that your home restaurant will serve food-stuffs only till approx three to four hours before your bedtime and you cannot pre-order! Curb late night eating habits can save you on average, about 250 calories of  mostly junk-food/nutritionally deficient food daily!

7. Sneak in 10 minutes of exercise thrice a day!
Our busy schedules can make going to the gym for an hour a day with another hour to get there, get changed, get showered etc. next to impossible, but that doesn’t mean we can’t strive to be fit. The latest studies show that squeezing in 10-minute high-intensity bouts of exercise/movement throughout the can still provide tons of benefits. When can we do this? Before the morning shower, nothing stops us from doing high-jumps and getting a little sweaty.
Taking a 10-minute brisk walk pre-lunch can help get our metabolism started. Another 10-minutes in the late afternoon before tea time can bring its own benefits or try a post dinner stroll with your family to strengthen family bonds. Movement in bite-size chunks is easy to fit into the day without it weighing on us like a gym session.

8. Curb cravings with a 10-minute walk
Cravings are usually linked to blood-sugar dips. Our body craves energy and the fastest sources are sugars and simple carbs. These can be avoided by eating balanced, nutrient dense meals throughout the day. However, there are moments of stress, triggers that induce cravings despite our best efforts. The next time you are hit unexpectedly by a craving, try drinking some water and getting in some movement  instead. Several studies show that moderate exercise, may actually help reduce food cravings besides distracting you form the craving and getting your circulation pumping.

9. Go to bed 10 minutes earlier tonight
According to studies, sleep may be as crucial to weight loss as diet and exercise. When your body doesn’t get enough sleep, the hormones that control hunger and satiety go out of balance, causing you to eat more and you may suffer more from comfort eating. You don't have to turn in really early, just try to hop into bed 10 minutes earlier tonight. Make gradual changes until you adjust to your ideal bedtime and get sufficient sleep, which most experts agree is between 7-9 hours a night.

10. Take a 10-minute time out from your TV
A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest remains so. No need to give up your TV time at the end of the day (though it would really not be a bad idea at all!), but taking a break for just 10 minutes for every hour of viewing to get up and move around can add up to big benefits for your health and vision. Take a quick walk around the house, putting things back in place during each commercial break. The average 65kgs woman can burn about 75 calories walking in place for 10 minutes. Do it twice or thrice….Not bad!

A Timer can be your next best friend!

Try and incorporate these tips one at a time, babysteps, to build a healthier lifestyle!

7 Tips to burn more during Daily Activities

When making lifestyle, diet, and exercise choices, baby steps are the way to go. Every little bit counts, adds up to massive long-term results. The “All or Nothing” mentality has kept a lot of people from doing anything at all. Instead of looking at a huge exercise goal which may seem frightening and quite impossible, we need to focus on baby steps to get us nearer. One step really is better than none step.

Just like you burn calories at the gym, walking or working outdoors, or rushing around your workplace, you also burn some doing everyday tasks and chores. Although not enough to replace a full-blown fat busting sweat producing workout, there are opportunities to keep the fires stoked all day long, starting the moment you wake up.

Movement all day long helps burn more, aids blood circulation, avoids problems with thrombosis, cellulite, etc.

Physical fitness is broken up into cardio, flexibility and balance, muscle strength and endurance. The tips given will help you get a little of each. Note that calorie burns are roughly calculated for a body weight of  65 kgs, but will vary per person based on the amount of muscle mass and fat mass they have.

Walking and Climbing, Faster and Further: The American Health Association recommends a minimum of 10,000 steps a day to maintain health overall. Aim for this, to start with. If you’re already here, Congratulations, simply add on some more or tweak it by doing it faster - by walking briskly or running up the stairs for extra cardio.

·         Where: You can do this anytime at all while you’re walking, wherever you’re going. Pick up the pace, as if you need to reach an appointment in a hurry. Make it a point to take the stairs instead of the elevator, every time you can.

·         Benefits: A brisk pace of 6 kmph or approx 3.5 mph can burn around 250 calories per hour. An hour of going up and down the stairs can burn approximately 500 calories.

Stretching: Stretch any part of your body: back, legs, arms, calves, etc. throughout the day.

·         Where: Get your morning going by doing this move in bed. Stretch out your entire body to wake your muscles up, just like felines.  If you are sitting all day, stretch your arms up over your head while sitting in a chair to engage shoulders, chest and back. Sneak in a stretch when holding on to a  railing by leaning into your arm to engage biceps and triceps.

·         Benefits: Stretching improves flexibility and will help with the cramped feeling many of us get by the end of the day. Mild stretching for an hour can even burn about 170 calories, so think about simple Yoga, Pilates etc..

Bicep Curls: Do this as you would a dumbbell curl. With weight in your hands, raise your hand to your face until your face and then lower, alternating between sides.

·         Where: Use loaded shopping bags like dumbbells and get in a few reps while waiting or before setting them down. You can also keep some cans or water bottles next to the couch and do a few reps while watching TV.

·         Benefits: While calorie burn is difficult to figure out, this move is great for muscle strength, specifically targeting your biceps.

      BALANCE TIP: Give your heart, legs, and entire body a workout with this one.

Standing on One Foot: Just pick one foot up a few inches off the ground. Switch feet, and take it a step further by raising it higher or crossing it over your thighs and squatting down a bit.

·         Where: Anywhere you feel comfortable doing it. Try it when brushing your teeth, waiting in line, for the bus or train, washing the dishes, or cooking.

·         Benefits: This is a balance move and burns up to 20 calories more than you would simply by standing on both feet. It also engages your core.

Sit Ups: Try this one out on your back or when sitting. When on your back, perform a crunch or a full sit-up.  When sitting, engage your abdominals and crunch in towards yourself.

·         Where: Do a set in bed before getting out. Later in the day, perform the sitting variation at work, school, or while in front of the TV or computer.

·         Benefits: Another strength and endurance move, this one is great for core strength and tightening flabby tummy muscles. It can burn a little more than 200 calories per hour as well.

Muscle Squeezes: Squeeze your butt and shoulders, raise your heels to squeeze your calves, or spend some time flexing in front of the mirror for this move.

·         Where: This is a great when sitting, at work, in class, in the car, at home, or even on the train or bus. You can do the calf raises while waiting in line, for the elevator or for the traffic light.  Don’t worry about somebody seeing you squeeze your butt! The move is so subtle nobody will notice.

·         Benefits: A great muscle endurance and strength move that engages muscles and give them a mini-workout.

Dancing: This is one of our favourites! Put on some music and let loose! Dancing is also a natural mood booster.

·         Where: Let the music blast at home to liven up mundane everyday chores like cleaning and cooking. You can grab the broom as your dance partner!

·         Benefits: This will get your body moving, heart pumping, and put a smile on your face. If you do it while engaged in mundane household chores, they will certainly seem less boring and you will be more effective! An hour of low impact dancing can burn about 340 calories.

How do you add some extra moves into your everyday life?